Fools in love
by emismpunk
Summary: CANONVERSE, Only fools fall in love. So Fools they were. Three stories told from the hearts of three men in love but unable to express it. Always longing, always chasing the unknown, always just out of touch. Within sight but out of grasp. If only they had known, if only they could move on. Clack, Vinstrife.


All aboard the Clack train to feelsvill. I had always wanted to write a fic that explored Zack's mind a bit more and his feels of longing towards Cloud instead of the other way around in which I'm so used to reading. So here is my attempt at doing so. (Fic is complete for now but may be open to future addition)

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><p><em>They said only fools fall in love.<em>

_It would make sense that I'm one of them._

_I'd like to say we were given a chance, but the truth is we were only a breath away to really realizing it...my breath._

_Everyone knew or...well...they know now. Your not really good at hiding your feelings you know that right, Spikey? Not that I'm much better..heh_

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><p>Sometimes I have to wonder how we could have ever been so close yet still so impossibly far from it. We could have been, we were almost...but...almost is just not enough.<p>

_...Is it ever though?_

If only I knew you had wanted me like I had wanted you.

I wouldn't have held back, I wouldn't have hesitated.

Funny, I think. I've always been so confident, cocky almost _(or so 'geal used to say)_ about practically anything and everything yet when it's about you. That all just seems to melt away.

I had spent so many nights alone before that damn mission craving you, desiring, lusting...loving you from afar.

I had known deep down from the moment I had first seen those naturally bright yet soft blue eyes, pale blond hair and shy smile appear from underneath that helmet that I had been beaten.

I had known then and there that I had lost a battle I hadn't even known I was apart of.

You know, it's the only fight I'm ever glad I had lost...

_...I just wish it hadn't taken me so long to fall down._

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><p>I had tried so hard in those times before that mission to deny it. Those budding feelings that I had. I tried, I really had tried so hard to convince myself, so much so it makes me sick to think about it now. The ways I tried to reason to myself why we couldn't, shouldn't be together.<p>

I really wish I hadn't. Then maybe just maybe, things may have turned out differently.

we would be somewhere...anywhere else...**together.**

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><p>We were just too different. You were still a infantry man, barely out of the cadets. Practically a boy still. Even though <em>I was just barely three years older than you, but that just seemed to fall onto my deaf ears.<em>

I was a SOLDIER, a lieutenant under the command of the great general himself.

I was one of the fastest climbing men in the ranks of ShinRa.

I was a student of one of the holy Trinity of ShinRa.

**I was...I was...a ****_monster._**

I didn't have time for a puppy love...I didn't deserve it. Not your touch, your smile, let alone your warm gaze and most certainty not you love.

I was a SOLDIER, a murder, a beast who killed his own friend and mentor and _oh so much more._

Yet, you were always there. Always ready to comforting this big cry baby of a man without empty words or pity even as I pushed you away. We barely had known each other then, yet you stood by refusing to let me go even as I felt my world crumble around me.

It's funny to think about now a-days, how this stubborn little runt would so readily and willingly take a man who could crush him without a second thought into his arms without worry.

Funny, how a tiny man who rarely smiled or even talked yet would so openly comfort someone like him. An angel that would show ten times more affection and tenderness to him in those moments then was ever thought capable_...was ever thought deserved._

All the while you continuously held me so closely. I was sure even without my enhanced hearing I would still clearly hear your heartbeat drum in my ears.

I had clung to you in desperation because it was all I had.

And you, you simply held on.

Never being the first to pull back.

Refusing to allow me to sink.

Refused to allow me to fall.

Simply telling me I was wrong to think in such a way.

Me, a first class SOLDIER was _wrong?_

During those moments I could believe it. You saved me without even realizing it. I never got to thank you for that.

And you, you never asked to be.

If I hadn't known before, I had known then I was undoubtedly in love with you.

Yet I was still afraid in that time, that place of so many awful memories.

Afraid for you and afraid of myself.

So I held back. No matter how much I had wanted to pull you back into my arms, hold you and feel your warmth against mine, never to let go again.

When I finally had to let you go, it felt like I was letting go a part of me. I wondered sometimes how and when exactly you had taken such a large piece of me without realizing it.

_It scared me in ways I hadn't felt before._

An even as you said that though it wasn't much, I could lean on you. _(It was so much, you were worth so much)_ If I needed someone, you would be there even if only to lend an ear or shoulder in that quiet yet sincere voice of yours.

I wanted so badly for that to be true but I was consumed by my own fear.

I continued on trying to convince myself that we were just to different, complete opposites. Like the sun and moon or...strife and fair. Polar opposites, we were just too different I tried to reason.

...that reasoning crumbled quickly when I realized some opposite are still just two sides of the same coin.

They always did say opposites attract.

Strife is Fair and Fair is Strife.

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><p>When you announced you were accepted into retaking the SOLDIER program come next spring. I smiled and congratulated you but on the inside I was screaming. SOLDIER's seemed all glitz and glam to civilians, the ultimate high-life for any young man. A chance to become a war veteran, a man to bring honor and glory to himself and his family, a <strong>hero<strong>.

I knew now that wasn't the case, I knew the truth. I have to wonder why I didn't just leave, at the time I had much rather been on the run then deal with ShinRa's dirty lies and secrets anymore.

Yet I didn't.

You were here, I couldn't just leave you but I couldn't put the life of a fugitive and traitor on you either.

I wish I had just said screw it. Stolen you from your bedroom and ran away with you.

_Maybe they'ed live in some secluded village or cabin of their own surrounded by nature and far far away from the shady workings of ShinRas. Happy and in love, his little blond by his side and tucked safely away from those that could harm him._

_He sighed, eyes down-casted._

_There's were a lot of things he had wish he had done differently in regards to the one before him._

Midgar itself swallowed hundreds upon hundreds and spit them backup as shells of their former selves. ShinRa was even worse, he had been forced to see the bitter truth and it had left a foul taste in his mouth.

But no matter how much I tried to drown out the truth. It just kept appearing as if someone had removed a blind fold I hadn't realized I had been wearing until they had already taken it off.

_Like my feels had been for you, only it had been too late then._

Regardless of what people thought about me, I knew when to keep my mouth shut and play my part. ShinRa's newest first class, an up and coming poster boy for SOLDIER.

People know me as being a bubbly, friendly and dare I say puppy with the thousand watt smile. My mother used to say I was born smiling. That may have been true. but at that time I didn't smile because I wanted to.

Yet I did, I didn't want you to get hurt.

Perhaps if you made SOLDIER I could use my position to make sure you were kept as safe as possible and should you fail which I wished for far too much for anyone's good even as harsh as it sounds, even to myself. I could do that even more so.

I had already begun to anyway. Did you ever notice how you were always stuck with cruddy, boring, endless _(safe)_ assignments, any mission that went beyond that would_ just so happen_ to have me assigned to it as well?

I don't think you ever did and I still feel bad for abusing my power like that. _(Not as much as having not done so and risked you getting hurt though)_

I just wanted you to be safe.

A lot of good that had done, it was all just a waste of time.

You still ended up hurt, hurt in unimaginable ways and in the end I still wasn't able to protect you.

True I had died to protect you from being dragged back but I had still died. You still suffered. You had already suffered, what I had done was nothing short of a failure at damage control.

I couldn't protect you, I failed as both a friend and a hero. Why you call me either now I still can't understand fully.

I couldn't be there save you.

I couldn't be there to protect you.

I couldn't be there to help you when you needed me most.

I...couldn't be there say **I love you**.

When I lay dying, all I had wanted to say was _I love you, I love you, I love you._ Over and over again. For all the times I hadn't and for all the chances I had lost.

But I hadn't, instead I had placed my dreams upon your broken mind and body.

What had I expected? I don't know, Maybe I had thought as my brain was dying that it would give you something to live for. Something to look towards the future for without me.

I just wanted you to live on and foolishly hoped you would be happy. My death would be a small hurdle you would overcome.

_I hadn't realized._

Back then I was a coward still consumed by my fear that I couldn't even say I love you to the person whom I cherished most with my last dying breaths. Fearful to say I love you and see rejection or acceptance. I really don't know which would have been worse. So I just didn't say anything about it in the end.

_Even now, i'm scared._

If only I hadn't.

If only I had knew, then we wouldn't have been almost.

If only I could have said what was on my mind, **_truly_** on it.

If only I could have heard you say so back.

_**If only.**__.. It seems to be the only thing I can say these days._

We were so different but we still belonged together.

Strife is fair and Fair is strife. Two sides of the same coin. Two pieces of a puzzle that fit only each other.

_I wonder how I could have ever lived without knowing you._

I wish I had known, I would have pushed for it so much harder.

We wouldn't have been almost in love.

We wouldn't be worlds apart. Not I in the lifestream, a paradise for many. While you on the edge, tormented by shadows of the past.

I would have fought even harder if only I could have.

I would have been there for you.

To hold you, to comfort you, to make you smile and laugh...to **love you.**

I would have protected you from breaking. I would have taken your place in an instant if I could.

It hurts so much. Seeing you and hearing you yet still have you out of reach. Watching you suffer and being able to do nothing about it.

If only I had known, we had known.

I would have told you so much sooner.

You always look so sad, your depressed I know that without doubt and I know deep down its my fault.

**I failed you.**

I don't want you to end yet, but I want more than to watch. I want to feel you. I want so much more it hurts.

I know I've watched you long enough.

But I can't stop my thoughts from imagining that we could have been more.

I was fine spending time with you. Seeing you smile, laugh and bring a blush to your normally pale skin. We were friends and I was okay with that. But I had wanted so much more yet I was terrified.

Zachary Fair, 1st class SOLDIER was **scared**.

Scared of love, scared of a tiny cadet.

The lithe infantryman with chocobo hair and pretty blue eyes.

If only...I had known. Maybe something would have been different. Things would have changed. Fate swayed.

We would be together, _you and I._ You would be beside me and I by yours.

Thing's could have been different.

If only I had said it, fear be damn...

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><p><em>He took in the uncomfortable form of the sleeping blond, caught in the claws of some nightmare or another.<em>

_He leaned down, pushing golden locks from a pale forehead and placed a chastise kiss before leaning down further towards an ear. Whispering something only between the blond and himself._

_He leaned back and smiled fondly, his eyes soft as he saw the body beneath him relax, a calm quickly settling over the room as a small smile crawl onto the others sleeping face. _

_Zack ignored his body as it gradually disappearing back into the lifestream. His eyes trained solely on the figure on the bed, never moving. His smile, a __**true**__ one, never leaving his face even as the last bright wisp left the room once again dark and alone save for the lone figure on the bed. _

_A sliver of moonlight shined through a crack in the curtain, highlighting a single metal stub with a worn but loved gem on it._

_._

The earring serving the only evidence for the blond to find in the morning.

.  
>.<p>

_They said only fools fall in love._

_It would make sense that he was one of them._

.  
>.<p>

.

**_I love you_****...Cloud.**


End file.
